Shuffle Aces: Harry Styles – Sign Of The Times

A couple of weeks back my daughter had a party and one of her friends organized a playlist. About 9pm this song came on and immediately caught my ear. It just seemed so well crafted I was amazed. I quickly went and checked the phone the playlist was being organized through and you can imagine my surprise to find it was Harry Styles! Certainly not an artist I’d normally listen to. As it happens, I’ve always had a bit of time for One Direction – talented kids who by and large seemed to appreciate the position they were in. Let alone the fact I knew so much about them from the young girls in my house! Sign Of The Times is simply a great song. Just about every element of classic pop is nailed, so simple yet so much texture. I will definitely listen to more of Styles’ work, because the songwriting team (Styles himself, Ryan Nasci, Mitch Rowland, and producers Jeff Bhasker, Tyler Johnson, and Alex Salibian) are so good. The clip below is a live version rather than the clip (which is a bit Harry Potter for my liking!). Props to you young Harry!

You can find all the Shuffle Ace tracks – including this one – on a Spotify playlist here.

Shuffle Aces is a series of posts that highlights a song of the week that “shuffling” has brought forth. With all the streaming services it’s not just an iPod on shuffle mode that we use to discover new stuff, but the principle remains the same: hit play and wait to see what gems come forth.